Around Here editor/writer

A year ago Monday, Deborah Burton was walking on Manning Gin Road in Barrow County when she was hit and killed by a vehicle.

The identity of the driver remains unknown.

“The case remains open and the sheriff’s office is again asking the public for any information,” according to a statement released Friday by the Barrow County Sheriff’s Office.

Burton, 51, had a Comer address, although her parents are from Bethlehem. She was married and the mother of three grown children.

Investigators said Burton was walking near the Jeremy Drive intersection shortly before 10 p.m. when she was hit by a vehicle traveling in the same eastbound direction. She died hours after she was hit, authorities said.

People in a nearby subdivision heard a noise that night, but did not investigate to determine the cause, investigators said.

Few leads have surfaced.

A month after Burton’s death, the sheriff’s office and Georgia State Patrol released information that they were looking for a late 1980s or early 1990s General Motors vehicle. The trooper working the case developed information on the type vehicle by evidence found at the scene, investigators said.

Deputies were called to the scene after another motorist saw the woman’s body and called 911, according to a sheriff’s report.

Within weeks of the death, investigators reached out for the public’s help and news was published in newspapers and aired on TV, but no strong leads surfaced, a situation that still exists.